Chris Wilson says versatility will be a strength of Colorado's defense in 2021

BOULDER — Colorado will kick off spring football on Monday and the defense will look at least a little bit different this season.

Chris Wilson was promoted from defensive line coach to defensive coordinator this offseason and he’s made some changes. According to Wilson, the defense won’t have one new look, but many new looks.

“We’re really interchangeable,” Wilson told reporters Thursday. “We’re going to be whatever we want to be every week to get our best players on the field.”

The idea is that any given week in the Pac-12, you could face any sort of opponent. You could see USC’s Air Raid, Stanford’s pro-style heavy packages or Oregon State’s run and shoot. Because the play styles vary so widely, it wouldn’t make sense to stick to one defense.

At least, that’s Wilson’s theory and it’s why he doesn’t say Colorado is a base 3-4 or base 4-3 defense.

“Base is whatever you’re going to base that day,” Wilson said. “When I talk about base, base is where you want to spend anywhere from 60-70% percent of your game plan. Most teams that have a base plan or a base offense, this 21 or 12 or 11 or 10, they’re going to use it 60-70% percent of the time and then everything else becomes situational. You gotta have a plan week-to-week that they’re going to come out with no tight ends, more tight ends or no backs. You have to stay versatile in this day and age.”

Colroado’s base defense for the past two seasons has been a 3-4 scheme where one of the outside linebackers is replaced by a STAR. The STAR position is a hybrid defensive back and linebacker who can lines up in the slot. This player, in theory, needs to be able to set the edge in the running game, blitz the quarterback from the edge and cover tight ends and slot wide receivers.

In the real world, it’s tough to find a player who excels in all of these areas, though Colorado’s Davion Taylor was pretty close a few years ago.

Maybe when Wilson means his defense will be versatile, the STAR position will be the reason why. On a week-to-week basis, Colorado could choose somebody to play the position in base. Against a team that spreads defenses out like UCLA, you might choose  a cornerback like Chris Miller. Against a team that wants to run you over, like Stanford, you could put a linebacker in that spot. From there, you could adjust the positioning on the field to match your strengths.

Or, the changes could mean implementing full 3-4 and 4-3 packages for true versatility.

Either way, what Colorado does will be dictated by the personnel at hand.

“Schemes are predicated on players,” Wilson said. “I’m not married to any systems, I’m married to players.”

Sounds simple, but figuring which players to build around is the key.

“I need to do a good job of evaluating and identifying our best players,” he said. “And then secondly is doing a great job of knowing our opponent and being able to understand their efficiencies as well as the things that we’ve been efficient on. And those subtleties can swing the balance for you. And if you steal a couple of downs within a game, you win a game.”

While identifying a team’s best players sounds like an easy task, sometimes it isn’t. Real-world football isn’t like video games where every player has a number by his name that tells you how good he is at his job. College coaches have to scout their own players to find hidden gems like Jarek Broussard and Carson Wells, neither of whom were widely expected to be All-Pac-12-caliber performers prior to last season. Then, the coaches need to figure out what those players’ strengths are and find a way to put those strengths to use.

It isn’t always easy.